AirPay Starts Small, Seeks Feedback on New Mobile Payment System

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I stopped by the launch party late yesterday for AirPay, an early stage startup incubating in San Diego’s Ansir Innovation Center that has been developing a mobile payment system with social media features.

“I have friends who say we’re insane,” says James Adams, the CEO who co-founded AirPay with Web developer Eric Shultz almost two years ago. “They say we’re going up against billion-dollar companies like Google, Foursquare, and PayPal. My response is that nobody has figured it out yet.”

In March, for example, Bloomberg reported that difficulties in getting consumers to embrace its technology had prompted Google to considering changes in its mobile payment strategy, such as sharing revenue with carriers.

Adams describes AirPay as a mobile wallet app that enables users to pay with a smartphone at participating merchants, where they can earn rewards and share their experiences with their friends and family. Users can check in with Foursquare, Twitter, and other social media, write reviews, and invite friends to join them. To pay for a purchase, users display a QR code to a scanning device on the merchant’s counter. For the time being, Adams says AirPay is using a dedicated smartphone because it’s cheaper than developing a more specialized scanner.

AirPay, which has raised $200,000 from four investors, is launching its mobile payment system for Apple’s iOS and Android in part to … Next Page »

That would have been a good party to get into, though I agree with him that no one has got it right, the problem is the “participating stores” issue, when someone comes up with a mobile payment system that is easy to process in any store without participating, then they’ll have a hit.

Hats off to @GetAirPay for having it & Bruce for covering it. Lots of inherent obstacles – participating stores, user convenience, being another or a “new” middleman, etc. To truly disrupt this ecosystem, something outside the wallet, website, mobile device has to emerge – think more like “In Time” anything short will be incremental at best.